Chapter 146: Fruit of Metamorphosis - V

Province 16 Claws.

Gron’s right hand had been crushed by mere aura alone, turning his bones into powdered fragments and his flesh into mush.

An A-Rank Hydra towered over him with a haughty expression on each of its heads. When they scoffed, it was a chorus of disdain.

"A mere E-Rank..." Two heads spoke in turn. "...and two B-Ranks..."

Another head started a sentence: "It seems like the tip we got was..."

And yet another one completed it. "...Accurate."

Sixteen more reptilian heads cackled in delight.

"This is good!"

"Great!"

"It’s perfect!"

All of them commented at the same time, roaring their words into the sky. Each time, their voices pressed down upon Gron’s shoulders, forcing him flat onto the ground.

Kuvie and Reazue weren’t faring any better. Perhaps their only solace was the fact that this particular Hydra wasn’t at the peak of A-Rank.

The gap between them wasn’t impossibly large... But it was still terrifying to do so head-on.

Gron, who already looked gaunt and disheveled before, had grown even paler than before. Having been exposed to the aura of a dead Dragon, his spirit was at its weakest.

Aventine’s repeated use of <Warp> didn’t help his recovery at all.

Now that he faced another A-Rank, he could feel the weakness permeating his entire body.

He couldn’t even stand anymore.

’What... a... humiliation...’

His thoughts were sluggish. His mind was on the brink of unconsciousness. With what strength he could muster, he glanced at Kuvie and Reazue, standing between him and the 20-headed Hydra.

Reazue’s jet-black wings, which he normally wrapped around himself like a cloak, were now fully unfurled, blocking much of the Hydra’s aura as he stood a few steps closer than everyone else. The Werebat’s long black hair fluttered with the swirling wind, looking especially grand with his vast wingspan.

Waves of searing heat pulsated from him. His blood boiled, and a fire had been lit in his gaze.

Kuvie stood just a few steps back, bracing herself with a wide horse stance, planting her goat hooves onto the ground, and even going so far as to summon a portion of her Nymph transformation to root herself in place.

Quite literally, roots were growing out of the Satyress’ golden-brown fur, allowing her to siphon mana from the stones of the central tower.

It was a desperate measure.

Gron, flattened onto the floor, couldn’t help but admire them.

"Damn... it..."

Cursing out loud, he ignored his bleeding gums and gritted his teeth.

Hearing the Hydra’s ridiculing laughter, there was nothing they could do. Any attempt at resistance... felt futile.

However, it seemed like Reazue did not agree.

"Hisssss..."

A huge amount of blood suddenly gushed out of Reazue’s body, evaporating into a crimson, steaming fog. In the next moment, Gron felt the weight on his shoulder lighten.

Then—

There was a bright flash of red-orange light.

—VWHOOOM!

Immense heat wafted over like a tsunami, causing the blood cloud obscuring his vision to boil even further.

The temperature was scalding—

[Blood Rush]

"Let’s go!"

Gron felt Kuvie’s hand grab his arm and yank him away. They’d only run for a few breaths before a stream of corrosive venom pierced through the blood cloud that Reazue had released.

Kuvie pulled him away at the last moment, but it wasn’t enough for both of them to dodge the entire attack.

Just the few drops that splattered onto Gron’s clothes ate through the cloth and began melting his skin the next moment.

A foul, rancid smell of acid and flesh assaulted his nostrils. His eyes turned watery, red from the irritation of the blood cloud and the chemical vapor of corrosive venom.

He couldn’t help but inhale sharply while he pushed down any louder reaction. His intuition told him that Kuvie’s earlier words had been the exact reason why the Hydra had been able to predict their path of escape.

—Whoosh!

Another wave of heat burned through what remained of his body hair and threatened to light his hair on fire. If not for the moisture still present in the blood cloud, Gron’s still-full head of hair would have vanished by the end of this encounter.

—ROAR!

—RAH!

—HRAAAA!

Various roars and cries, filled with sadistic delight, resonated from somewhere behind him. It was probably the Hydra, playing with its food.

"You are nothing, Werebat! No amount of effort can allow you to defeat us!"

The Hydra’s different heads began hurling insults and provocations, seemingly wanting to see the extent of Reazue’s abilities.

However, Gron didn’t hear Reazue react at all. The Werebat, who was already a man of few words on any normal day, was now dead silent.

’Kill... survive... fight... surivive... fight... survive... survive... survive...’

The thoughts in his mind were slowly reducing in number. One by one, every extra intention evaporated to reinforce the singular conviction that was eventually left within his skull.

The more blood he expended and lost, the duller his own mind became, and a deep intoxication brewed from his extreme lightheadedness.

Inversely, his strength grew. For every drop of blood he lost, and the less his capacity to think became... the greater the enhancement from the Martial Art he used to advance.

[Single-Minded Flow].

The moment his mind wished only to survive...

Reazue struck with the <Trait> he wielded naturally as a Werebat.

[Bloodmancer]!

The crimson fog swirled into a fleeting, rapid maelstrom, condensing instantly into a blade in his hand. It happened so fast that the Hydra had been caught mid-laugh.

"Huh?"

The nearest head nudged the heads beside it.

"Hey—"

—Whoosh!

Reazue began his slash a moment before his muscles tensed. The sword drew a straight cutting line through the air, fuelled by a powerful flap of his leathery wings.

Crimson irises gleamed with a crazed, bloodshot desire to live.

—Swish!

Then, the sword that looked like crystallized blood drew a wide arc. A vivid red flash of light seemed to trail behind that single slash.

Unfortunately...

—Clang!

—Crash!

With the sound of shattering glass, Reazue’s crimson crystalline sword shattered against the Hydra’s dull grey scales.

"Heh, just kidding."

The ’panicked’ head earlier jeered.

"Now, die!"

Four of the Hydra’s heads converged upon Reazue’s position, appearing from in front, above, and from both his sides.

The Werebat was suddenly prompted with a desire to retreat through the only opening he was allowed.

But his instincts told him otherwise.

A split-second decision flashed through his mind, and Reazue rushed to his left. He charged to the Hydra’s lizard-like head until he was only a few meters away from losing a chunk of his body to its maws.

Then, the blood within his body boiled once more. But this time, the blood took on a sickly brown tinge, dyeing his grey complexion with a disgusting hue.

[Bloodmancer]!

"Burst...!"

—Splatter!

Reazue’s skin was torn open in many places as his blood exploded out of every exposed pore in his body. A foul-smelling maroon liquid shot straight into the Hydra’s mouths, most of which went to the head on his left.

The head he approached.

Brownish blood splattered all across its tongue and flooded its mouth with the flavor of disease.

Inexplicably horribly, making the Hydra head feel like it took a bite out of pus-filled lesions on a rotting corpse.

Gagged by the smell and the taste, this particular head vomited.

"Blerggh!"

Reazue watched as the head spat his blood out, coughing and wheezing.

Meanwhile, the other three heads—as well as the other heads still waiting for an opening to strike—all cursed at the same time.

"Ah! Damn Werebat!"

The other heads seemed to have been affected by the stench as well. Unlike the first head, though, the others weren’t rendered incapable of battle.

But this was good enough for Reazue.

[Bloodmancer] reactivated once more, summoning the splattered blood back towards him and creating a flowing ring of sewage-like blood. The sheer rancidity of it all, like that of boiling newspapers and rotting plant matter being cooked into a soup, continued to vilify the surrounding atmosphere.

A natural shield that exploited life’s revulsion of rot formed around Reazue, protecting him from the Hydra’s physical attempts at his life.

"You disgusting, lesser life form..."

Reazue’s eyes narrowed as he watched six of the Hydra’s heads suddenly inhale.

The faint smell of ozone, of combustion, of oil, and of burning flesh suddenly wafted over.

The Werebat’s [Single-Minded Flow] shifted at that moment.

From ’survival’ to...

’Escape!’

—VWHOOOOM!

A coiling, merging spiral of electricity, fire, oil-like saliva, and molten guts formed from the six different breath attacks. There was even a hint of venom corroding the path that the combined breath attack had taken, even without truly making contact with the ground.

The spiralling breath was as large as a carriage, barrelling forward with an all-reducing momentum that deemed all obstacles as something that could be reduced to ash. Then, when it seemingly reached its limits, and Reazue had already leapt to the side...

It began sweeping towards him, thoroughly dissolving the walls and pillars of the central tower.

Reazue felt a chill run up his spine as his complexion paled further. His grey skin suddenly gained a deathly pallor.

This time, he did not release his blood.

Instead, it burned within him, fuelling his body to move faster and faster, further and further until—

—Crack.

His own skeleton could no longer handle his sudden musculature enhancement and the subsequent pressure it was forced to bear.

Once again, only a single thought rang in his mind:

’Escape! I must escape!’